


introducing us to a new thing

by spaceboy_niko



Category: Sorted (Website) RPF
Genre: Aftercare, Frottage, M/M, Mild D/s, Rope Bondage, Shibari, bc we love our boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 16:37:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17287643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceboy_niko/pseuds/spaceboy_niko
Summary: Ben ties James up.(and i take 2k words to make a point)





	introducing us to a new thing

“Stay still,” Ben says, trying not to destroy the quiet that’s settled over the room. He’s still fully clothed, a contrast to James seated on the bed fully naked.

James raises an eyebrow. “What’re you gonna do? Tie me up?”

“Yes, you dummy, that’s literally the point of this. I want you to let me try out something new this time, though, is that okay?”

“Yeah.” James shifts until he’s comfortable, and then sits still. He knows that if Ben’s trying out a new design, it’s something that he’s spent ages mulling over, because their patterns are so unique and special to each of them that any change in them has to be perfect.

* * *

Ben came back from Japan with a fascination for something he called _kinbaku-bi_ , and James had first watched him at work with Barry. Barry had sat perfectly still, as Barry did for all of them, and James had watched on in awe as he’d let Ben push him, pull him, roll him over as a long length of silky silver ribbon was threaded between his thighs, around his waist and up his back to hold his wrists together behind his head.

“Can I see, Ben?” Barry had begged, half-heartedly fidgeting with the little he could reach. “Please, let me see, am I pretty?”

“What do you think, James?” Ben had asked levelly, barely paying any attention to Barry.

“James, come on, tell him to let me see, go on, please–“

“Quiet, you,” Ben had said almost fondly, and deftly hooked the ribbon that sat over Barry’s chest up and into his mouth. It had pushed his arms further back behind his head and Barry had whined at the shift and the new strain in his shoulders before falling quiet.

“He’s so pretty like that, Ben, I think you should,” James had replied, barely able to draw his focus away from where the edges of the silver dug into Barry’s skin at his hips.

It had taken both of them to lift Barry up on dead legs and walk him to the mirror, and James had watched as Ben whispered praises into Barry’s ear and jerked him off carefully until Barry moaned around the ribbon in his mouth and collapsed to his knees as he came, bringing both Ben and James to the floor with him.

Once he’d untied Barry, cleaned him up and left him asleep, Ben had walked James to the door.

“Do you want to do that to me?” James had asked tentatively.

“Oh, no,” Ben had replied. “I’d use a much stronger rope on you.”

Stretching up on his tiptoes, Ben had kissed James on the cheek and bid him goodnight before heading back in to keep an eye on Barry.

James had gone home and jerked off in the living room because he couldn’t wait to make it to his bedroom.

* * *

“It’s not going to be much different,” Ben says. “I just want to try something new with your arms. It’ll take two ropes, though. Do you want to pick your colours?”

His options are limited – Ben won’t use the silks or thin ropes on him, because he has a habit of seeing if he can get out of whatever Ben ties him up with, and Ben has learned his lesson after a mishap with a too-weak yellow rope – but he does often have a hard time choosing between a dark maroon rope and an inky black one, so it doesn’t take him long to decide.

“D’you mind where I use each one?” Ben asks, and James shakes his head no.

Ben gets him to sit up on his knees, back straight and thighs not resting on his calves, as he begins his usual pattern on James’ torso with the maroon. He takes his time, always does, making sure every loop is symmetrical and placed just right, and his deliberate touches drive James mad more than the developing ache in his tense quads, more than the loop around his cock that shifts and tightens and gives him just enough friction as Ben works.

The loops interlock over his abs like a chain, all feeding out behind his back and around his waist to form the next loop up and the next one, until the biggest top loop, where the ends of the rope frame his pecs. The design culminates where Ben burns some of the loose end by wrapping it around his throat like a collar, and the knot presses stiffly into the back of his neck if he tries and moves his head too much. If he stiffens his back too much, the bottom loop yanks his dick upwards so tightly it almost hurts, but he can’t bend his back forward too far because that same loop chokes him as it pulls at the knot at the top of his spine. James knows that Ben could just as easily leave him as he is, yet he trusts Ben fully to get him off and get him out with as little fuss as possible.

“Lie on your front with your arms behind your back, please, James,” Ben says, breaking the quiet again as he takes the black rope in either hand and begins knotting it.

James complies.

“I’ve been figuring this one out for a while, just for you. I’ve never done it on anyone else before.” He hesitates. “Are you okay with that?”

“Yes, Ben,” James whispers, turning his head so the pillow doesn’t muffle his voice.

Ben lines the string of overhanded knots he’s tied down James’ spine so that the lowest knot is around the same point as his wrists, and begins looping the ropes up his arms, always returning to that midline. Occasionally, he’ll swear and un-loop a section, and the feeling of the rope being untied while he’s not fully bound is strange at first to James, but he feels all warm when he realises that it’s because this is James’ pattern, done by Ben for him and only him, and Ben is doing his best to make it perfect.

Ben’s constantly checking in with James, tugging at the ropes and asking if they’re too tight or if his arms are still comfortable, and James always replies with “I’m fine, Ben.”

Ben knows he’s fine because James speaks up if it hurts, letting out an audible wince when Ben twists something that presses into his elbow weirdly or when one of the ropes digs into his ribcage too much even for him to handle.

Ben helps him sit up onto his knees and loops the ends of the rope under his makeshift collar before burning the ends, twisting them around the maroon rope surrounding his pecs and back into where the designs overlap on his shoulder blades.

“How do you feel?” Ben asks, mimicking James’ posture as he sits back on his heels in front of him, like he’s waiting for judgement.

James shifts his shoulders and feels the rope roll over the muscle, as if someone is pressing their fingers hard into the tissue. He flexes his arms, trying to pull away from the midline of his body, but he’s held firm and taut.

Ben watches his muscles shift like a hawk, and James sees his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows.

So he tugs against the rope a bit harder, feeling it dig into the skin of his biceps and triceps and shift over his deltoids as he tries to pull his arms away from his back.

Ben has this little grin on his face – whether it’s from watching James struggle or from how the design looks on him, James is unsure – and James finally has to indulge him by giving up. It’s always a bit momentous for Ben, because outside of this context, James could overpower Ben without even thinking about it, but with a few metres of rope in hand, Ben becomes the most powerful man in the world as far as he’s concerned.

“How do you feel?” Ben asks again.

“Good. Do I look pretty?” James asks.

He doesn’t know why he uses the word _pretty_ – it’s Barry’s word, Barry’s the one who wants to be _pretty_ , but James can’t think of any other word that describes looking good but being powerless.

There’s a reverent silence from Ben, as if he knows that pretty doesn’t feel right.

“You aren’t just pretty, James, you’re…you’re a work of art. You’re perfect.”

Ben shifts a little and moves closer, tracing the lines of his handiwork with deliberate hands.

“Pretty seems too ethereal, too light to describe you, James. It’s– you’re– you’re _striking_ , you’re an image that’s just been burned into the back of my brain forever, it’s ridiculous.”

“Can I see?” James asks, the question inevitable as always.

Ben snaps a couple of photos, always from the neck down, and shows James the knotted links down his back, nearly matching the looped chain-esque links over his stomach.

“Fuck, I’m hard, look at that,” James says conversationally, as if he’s only just noticing it. “Please get me off, Ben?”

“Only because you asked so nicely,” Ben answers, unbuckling his own belt and undoing his trousers just enough to take out his own mostly-hard cock. He reaches past James for the lube and shuffles forward into his lap so he can squeeze some onto his hand and take both of them.

James sighs as Ben jerks them both off slowly, happy to chase his mouth for a kiss. It’s a bit strange to be making out with Ben and feel his hands all over his body, but not being able to touch back, so he settles for clenching and unclenching his fists behind him, half-trying to match Ben’s rhythm and failing.

He tenses up entirely as he comes, feeling all the ropes dig into his skin as Ben keeps rubbing himself off against him until he also sighs into James’ mouth and comes, his load joining James’ on his rope-covered stomach.

Ben kisses him sweetly one last time before tucking himself back in and ducking out to grab a washcloth. James wants nothing more than to slump and bask in the post-orgasm bonelessness, but the rope around his torso holds him up that little bit longer.

Ben comes back and cleans him and the ropes off, then untwists the black rope from the maroon and undoes the knot at the base of his neck, and James instantly feels like he can relax.

Starting with his arms, Ben pulls the rope back through where it came, until James’ wrists are free and the line of knots down his spine falls to the bed.

Ben rubs the muscle as James moves his arms back to a normal position, massaging his shoulders down to his upper arms. The ropes left thick red lines, he notices, marking out the pattern like a reference.

He moves on to the torso, shuffling around James – who is still sat so placidly, good boy – and the maroon rope has left lines, too, framing his nipples and drawing lines from his waist and hips to the centre of his abs, emphasising the definition of the muscle that Ben so loves.

Once the ropes are away, Ben continues to work out the muscle where the bondage held James and kept him tense. He knows from experience that a sore James is a grumpy James, and a grumpy James is not something he wants to wake up to tomorrow, not after the success of tonight.

James is more than happy to let Ben knead the muscles of his shoulders, lying on his stomach and making contented noises.

Ben lets him drift off peacefully, but in the morning, James picks him up and manhandles him out of the kitchen with bruised arms when he tries to make breakfast for them both.

“Let me be in charge of the kitchen now,” James says. “I’m not going to just sit there and watch you poach your eggs all wrong.”

“I swear to God, next time I won’t untie your arms,” Ben says with no hint of malice in his voice, and watches the emerging bruises with a strange sense of pride.

James makes a noise that doesn’t sound like objection, and rubs at one of the marks on his wrist when he notices Ben staring.

It hurts – of course it does, it’s rope-burn on steroids – but the rest of his body hurts in exactly the same way, and it’s a more than pleasant ache.

He’ll have to thank Ben properly later.

**Author's Note:**

> i finished this and went to upload it then checked discord and jenn had written something way better than this so thank u everyone in the sorted discord but also jenn i love u and ur talent
> 
> title from dangerous woman by ariana grande, my title choices are getting more questionable


End file.
